Conference held in honor of Reich, study of orgasm as cosmic life force

Published: Monday, July 17, 2000

RANGELEY, Maine {AP} Sixty years ago, in this lakeside village renowned for fly fishing, psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich recorded his discovery of what he believed was a cosmic life force associated with sexual orgasm.

This week, 15 to 20 people will construct devices designed by the discredited scientist to concentrate a mysterious force he called "orgone energy" for use in the treatment of psychological and physical illnesses.

The devices, called orgone accumulators, will be among the highlights of a conference starting Monday at the Wilhelm Reich Museum, founded four decades ago at the Austrian-born scientist's hillside retreat.

"He is much more respected in Europe, particularly in Germany, where quite a bit of research continues. In the United States, he's still someone to poke fun at."

Dr. Richard Schwartzman - Philadelphia psychiatrist

After breaking with mentor Sigmund Freud, Reich went on to emphasize the role of sexual gratification in achieving psychic health. He believed that the body discharges excess energy through orgasm; if that function is blocked, undischarged energy becomes a source of neurosis.

Reich developed the orgone accumulators, made of alternating layers of metallic and nonmetallic materials and designed either as a blanket that wraps around a person or as a box in which a person sits, to heighten vitality and help heal disease.

People who believe in their therapeutic value say they get a warm, tingling sensation when they use them.

Reich's devices were branded a fraud by the Food and Drug Administration, which obtained an injunction against Reich in the 1950s. After a trial in Portland, he was found guilty of contempt of court and sent to prison, where he died in disgrace of a stroke at age 60.

Many in the scientific world continue to ridicule him as a quack and crackpot.

But some believe in his theories and his work is carried on by the American College of Orgonomy in Princeton, N.J., which publishes a journal twice a year with developments in the field.

The museum, an offbeat tourist attraction housed in the modernistic, fieldstone building where Reich carried out his most controversial work, serves as a shrine to him.

"His ideas are very powerful. It's a mistake to think that Reich is just going to go away," said Bernard Grad, a biologist at McGill University who worked with Reich in the early 1950s.

Grad, now 80, is one of the conference speakers. He will discuss a study on the orgone accumulator's therapeutic effects on mice with leukemia.

"He is much more respected in Europe, particularly in Germany, where quite a bit of research continues," said Dr. Richard Schwartzman, a Philadelphia psychiatrist. "In the United States, he's still someone to poke fun at."

"We can't prove anything. We present things," said Mary Boyd Higgins, who oversees the publication of Reich's work and administers the trust fund that owns and operates the museum. "But if somebody leaves here with a sense that something serious went on here, that this is not a joke, then I feel that we've accomplished a great deal."